May 12-14, 2017 at Salamander Camp, Santa Cruz Mountains

About

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@ccijam.org.

Organizers

Karin Moriarty, a native of Chile, immigrated to the United States in the late 70’s, and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Arts/Dance from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. Since then, she has taught, collaborated, and danced with many Bay Area artists, including the Ellen Web Dance Group and the Dance Brigade.

In 1999, Karin began studying contact improvisation with Tony Kramer at Stanford University. She also discovered a love for site-specific work, and created works for various outdoor venues. Her favorite project was “Along the River,” a one-hour performance at the Andy Goldsworthy sculpture at Stanford University.

Her teaching emphasizes how energy forms movement and expression as it moves over our internal emotional landscape. The language of the body is deeply magical and powerful, allowing us to manifest, create and transform, using our life experiences.

Currently, Karin is the Artistic Director of Dance-Is-It, a contact improvisation group based in Palo Alto. She has also been a long-time organizer and teacher of the California Contact Improv Jam. She is a member of the organizing body of the wcciJAM2016. She often teaches at Dance Odyssey in Santa Cruz, Ecstatic Dance in Palo Alto, and Stanford University.

Vitali Kononov is a movement artist, bodyworker and somatic movement educator, working with improvisation as a performance discipline, therapeutic tool and a contemplative practice. He was born in St-Petersburg, Russia, in 1966. He has been teaching contact improvisation since 1997 in Russia, Europe, USA and Mexico. His background includes contemporary dance, physical theater, contact and ensemble improvisation, as well as various somatic disciplines and yoga. Vitali has completed Somatic Educator, Developmental Movement, Embodied Anatomy and Yoga programs from The School for Body-Mind Centering®. He taught at Moving On Center – School for Participatory Arts and Somatic Research since 2002 and was a faculty member of American Dance Festival (2003-04). Recent years artistic collaborations included improvisational works with Brenton Cheng, Carol Swann, Rosemary Hannon, Andrew Wass, Erika Tsimbrovsky and Vadim Puyandaev, Scott Wells, Taja Will and others.

Sergey Berezin is a passionate dancer, a former martial artist, and a technical wizard on the team. Sergey has been regularly dancing 5Rhythms / Open Floor since 2007, and a few years ago added Contact Improv and Ecstatic Dance to his regular practice. He’s also been a regular at the CCI Jam since 2013.